A Cynical Game of Charades
by Ludi
Summary: Remy sets out to cynically seduce Rogue, only to find he's fallen in-love - even though he doesn't really realise it at the time. Set in the HoC universe, based on one of the flashbacks in chapter 24 of Arrow of Time.


**Disclaimer:** Characters are owned by Marvel.

**Warnings: **Some bad language and sexual tension.

**Author notes: **This was a birthday gift for my lovely beta, **narwhalloveFF**. Actually, this story had been sitting around for a couple of years, unfinished, and I finally got it edited and completed for her. I'm now posting it here at her request. It takes place in the HoC universe, before the massacre at the mansion, and is one of the flashbacks featured in Chapter 24 of _Arrow of Time_, when Rogue is temporarily taken over by the Phoenix.

I hope you enjoy it!

-Ludi x

-oOo-

**A Cynical Game of Charades**

There was always _something_.

The graze of a glance, the stroke of a touch, the flash of a smile.

And sometimes there was nothing.

Just a moment, just a lull in the fight, just a split second or two when she would catch a glimpse of him in the melee, the turn of his body, all unconscious, effortless grace, taking her breath away, making her pause as he disappeared back into the rising dust, the swirl of his trench coat the only thing left in his supple wake and—

_Rogue! Incoming!_ Psylocke shouted in her mind, and without a second thought she whipped round, catching the incoming Sentinel's hand by the finger as it brushed past her, crushing the smooth metal carapace with just the barest squeeze – the entire titanium appendage shattered under her grasp, and she turned her face away from the explosion as the shrapnel screamed past her.

"Nice!" came Gambit's voice through the dust and the smoke, and through it all she saw the blaze of his power signature burst into life and streak across the room towards her, over her shoulder and straight into the chest of the Sentinel as it came speeding after its torn off hand. There was the now-familiar high-pitched whine that came with his powers before the robot's entire torso detonated in a shower of metal shards and magenta stars.

But Rogue had already twisted away, ducking under cover behind a steel beam, only narrowly missing the ensuing eruption of debris.

"Computer!" Storm's voice cut over the din of clattering metal and sparking electrical wires, "end simulation!"

And Rogue stood as her cover evaporated into a pixelated mesh that slowly melted away. Until all that was left was the Danger Room.

"Down in seven minutes and twenty-three seconds." It was Storm, walking up to her with a congratulatory smile on her face. "Excellent work, my friends."

Rogue heaved in a breath and wiped the sweat from her brow as she was joined by first Psylocke, then Gambit.

"Ha!" The word came from his lips like an explosion as he panted for breath. "Finally beat de wolfman's best record! Knew it was only a short time comin'!"

"Yes," Psylocke interrupted sardonically – she appeared to have hardly broken out a sweat. "Although I have to say I wasn't expecting it." She turned to Rogue, adding; "What happened to you back there, Rogue? For a minute there I thought we'd lost you. You got distracted by something?"

There was a certain something in Betsy's voice that made Rogue think that maybe she knew – _maybe Ah was broadcastin' or somethin'_ – but she hid it all under her usual brassy self-confidence, replying, "Sure Ah was distracted. Pretty hard not to when Gambit's showin' off with those fancy pyrotechnics."

She shot him a pointed glance, but he met her look without a trace of humour or outrage, no sarcasm, no glib smile. In place of the sarcasm she had been expecting she saw only the intensity of his gaze. Levelling her with a stare so composed, so serious, that it made her look away instantly without even knowing why.

She caught her breath again, the exhaustion of the last 10 minutes or so pulling at her; the thick slick of sweat under her bodysuit suddenly never seeming so uncomfortable.

"Yeah, well," she heard him say over her shoulder after a moment of silence, "You can call it showin' off, if'n you want. I call it style."

Again, no sarcasm. His tone was soft, almost absent. She didn't dare look round at him for fear of seeing something she might not like.

Or, to be more precise, of seeing something she might like a _lot_.

She ran her thumb round the hem of her left glove, itching to take it off.

"So does dis go on de scoreboard or somet'ing?" she heard him continue – this time all his easy nonchalance back in place. "'Cos I'd really love t' see de wolfman's face when he sees it."

"Haven't you heard, Gambit?" Betsy threw over at him with that bare hint of humour she did so well. "It isn't polite to crow."

"Besides which," Storm added pointedly, "there _is_ no scoreboard." She glanced down at her watch. "Now, before you get carried away congratulating yourselves, you should get yourselves showered and cleaned up as soon as possible. There's a War Room meeting in about 5 minutes. We're running late."

She swept around, her cape catching elegantly in her wake as she left the room.

"Ah guess this means there ain't no time for a shower then," Rogue remarked miserably, feeling the sweat pooling uncomfortably in the seams of her uniform. She hated this. There were some days she wished to God she could wear the skimpier costumes of her other female compatriots.

Psylocke turned to Rogue, grinning mischievously, "For you, no. Luckily, I'm on an assignment tonight, so I get to send my apologies. I can't stand these boring meetings."

Rogue stood there watching as Betsy sauntered off, piling her hair up on her head and fanning her neck with her free hand, more preoccupied with the welcome idea of a shower than anything else. It was a moment before Gambit stepped up beside her, his breathing still coming hard and fast.

"Shame about de scoreboard, neh?" he muttered.

Rogue said nothing. It wasn't the first time she had come subconsciously to measure the distance between them, and this time she was acutely aware of it, of his eyes right there on her neck like a pinpoint of light homing in on an ant through a magnifying glass.

_Damn_.

She slid a glance over her shoulder, finding – yes – she was right; there he was, closer than she'd first thought, his own hair slick with sweat, his gaze right on the exposed skin at the nape of her neck.

It was one of those little _somethings_ that she was always hyper aware of, the somethings that added to the nothings and built up to this intolerable mess of feelings she couldn't quite push away.

"Don'tcha think you're too old t' be playin' tit-fer-tat games with Logan, sugah?" she snapped at him without quite meaning to, dropping her hair and letting it fall in a wild cascade over her shoulders.

"Heh." And this time his tone was bitter. "Sometimes I t'ink I'm too old t' be playin' _couyon_ games wit' pretty girls I like, chere. But here I am, right here wit' you. Playin' those same ol' games."

She turned to him then, braved his gaze because that was what she did. Answer a challenge without thinking.

"Ah thought you woulda given up this particular game, Cajun. Especially when it's one you can't win."

His smile was lop-sided and almost totally humourless.

"I dunno. Dere are always ways to win…"

"So you say," she half-whispered, allowing herself to take an imperceptible step closer into his space. "But it's been – what? – ten, eleven months now, and you still ain't figured out a way yet."

He liked this game. This push and pull, her refusing to meet his gaze and then surprising him by stepping within a foot of him. His smile warmed.

"Who says I ain't?"

There was a look in his eye, a pitch to his voice that made her pause; and just as she would have questioned him on it he looked down, said; "There's a tear in your glove."

She lifted her hand, seeing a long, deep gash in the yellow leather.

"Aw, shit," she hissed. "Musta been when Ah crushed that Sentinel hand. Now Ah'm all out. Gotta get another one of those damn things made."

"Yeah, and while you're at it," he persisted, reaching out and touching her collarbone, "dere's a tear here too."

She looked down at his hand, seeing his fingers pressed ever so gently under a three inch rip at her clavicle.

She really didn't know how he did it. Turned the most casual, most throw-away of touches into something that was seduction itself.

"Hope you've got another suit, chere," he added, with such an unexpected softness that she glanced up at him sharply, only to have her gaze nailed by his and held for just a split second too long.

It was something she felt impelled to break abruptly, and when she did she turned away, muttering uneasily, her heart pumping traitorously, "Don'tcha worry none, Ah got one, sugah." She took a few steps towards the door, adding as she did so; "Best head for that for that meetin', swamp rat. You missed the last one when you were out doin' god knows what. Ah'm surprised the Prof didn't give yah a hundred demerits."

She'd almost made it to the door when he called out to her.

"Rogue."

She tried. She really tried not to turn and face him, but before she could stop herself she'd already gone and done it.

And again there was no smile on his face, no inkling of the charm that came so easily to him. Perfectly level, perfectly without insinuation. Her heart beat painfully. She hadn't been expecting it. She hadn't been expecting this _seriousness_, this non-attempt at play. When he was smiling, she knew what he meant. When he was hitting on her, she knew how to deal with it. When he bantered with her, she knew how to give back. But when he was like this… It scared her. She didn't know what to expect next.

"Let's do dinner," he said. "Tonight."

He often asked her out on dates. Sometimes she said yes, sometimes she said no and told him to piss off. What never changed was the look on his face. The easiness, the casualness with which he could offer his time and his company, with which he could receive a rebuff because there would always be another time, and there would always be a someone else.

That look wasn't there now.

Instead there was the seriousness, the earnestness, of someone who thought that her answer mattered. Who wanted her to say _yes_.

She'd never seen him like this and it thrilled her, it unnerved her.

"Ah can't," she answered. "Ah'm headin' out for dinner with the gals…"

"Then just a drink," he broke in quickly. "If'n you want to, chere. I'll meet you down by de big tree at about 10 if you decide you wanna. If not…" and he raised his hands in a conciliatory gesture, "I won't hold it against you. I promise."

She couldn't help it. She pulled a face, hitched a hand on her hip and said, "And what makes yah think Ah'd care if you did?"

He smiled then but didn't say a word in reply. Instead he walked over to her, lifted a hand and brushed her hair from her shoulder in a gesture that was tenderness itself. "I don't t'ink anyt'ing, Rogue," he murmured, dropping his hand slowly. "Except dat I hope you'll come t'night. If it's what you want… Be there." His eyes never left hers. He took a step backwards, then another. When at last he turned and brushed past her, it was as if he were unwilling.

It was only when she finally heard the doors to the Danger Room swish open and close shut again that she remembered to breathe.

-oOo-

She'd lied about dinner with the girls.

She'd said it just to get him to back off.

Truth was, they'd been messing around a lot lately, hanging out in each other's bedrooms and doing shit.

It was amazing how titillating the most innocuous things could be when you couldn't connect skin on skin. The holding of a gaze, the release of a breath, a well-placed caress over clothing, a lingering touch in places you hardly dare go yourself sometimes. The unfamiliar weight of another human body, heartbeat against heartbeat, arms around one another, stillness, silence but for your breathing. The horrible want for more.

The whole thing was beginning to get to her.

It was the pretence of exploration. The promise of something neither of them could have.

She wanted done with it. She wanted it over.

But then there were days like this when he looked at her certain way, when he did certain things that made her _want _to be with him despite all that, and she couldn't say no.

Even if it entailed certain disaster.

Rogue showered, washed away the sweat and the heat and the dirt of the day.

She stared at the tiles with her heart still pounding in her chest and her body still aching dully.

It was when she was like this, naked and alone, that she felt his presence most viscerally. The promise of his body, the seductive sweep of his words, the warmth of his closeness. The fact that she could not possess him, not physically, not _really_.

She knew he was dangerous. Literally, of course, but _emotionally_… Yes – she knew he could hurt her in ways that could would take longer to heal than physical cuts and bruises and broken bones. She knew all these things. But she _wanted_ him. She even thought she might be _in love_ with him. She was pretty sure, right now, standing there under the shower head and wondering what this _something special_ was, that that was _exactly _what she felt for him.

She wasn't stupid either. She had seen him – _felt _him – staring at her the past few weeks, silent and serious, without any of his previous efforts at actual touches and sexy banter. _Something_ had been going on in that fevered mind of his, and she wasn't sure what it was, but she could make a few guesses. She wasn't sure whether she liked any of them or not.

Just the mere thought of them made her mouth go dry.

Rogue shut off the shower, towelled herself dry, and walked out into her bedroom, ignoring the chill of the evening air. She caught her reflection in the full-length mirror as she passed to the chest of drawers and stopped.

She stared at herself.

Pale skin, what seemed like acres of it.

She studied her body as if looking at an unimpressive specimen.

This wasn't the first time she'd stood like this, looking at herself in the mirror, wondering what it would feel like to have his hands on her. Trying to imagine his expression as he gazed at her. Daydreaming about what it would be like to have him fit his body against hers.

She was only human after all.

But it wasn't merely a question of lust. And it wasn't only a question of curiosity either. It was a little bit of both of those things, but it was also this feeling inside her. This yearning ache that wouldn't go away. This longing for a closeness that both scared and enthralled her. And she didn't want it with anybody else. She didn't want it with anybody else but him.

She tore her gaze away from the mirror, slipped on her underwear, put on the white dress she'd worn that day on the veranda, the one she _knew_ – instinctively – that he liked her in best. She slipped on some flats and clasped the butterfly necklace he'd given her round her neck. She wondered whether to do her hair up but decided against it. He liked looking at her hair. He liked touching it. It was an unconscious thing, but he'd done it enough for her to know it was a small token of fascination she held over him. She rarely wore makeup, but she put a little on for him now. If this was supposed to be something _special_, she didn't want him to think she hadn't made an effort.

When she was done, she looked at herself again in the mirror. She knew – as every woman knows – that he would want her when he saw her. But it didn't ease the clamorous beating of her heart. If anything it made it worse. She _could _still back out. He'd given her that option. He'd been considerate enough for _that_. But she wasn't about to turn back. She wasn't about to turn back because when all was said and done, however afraid she might be, however dangerous she knew him to be, she still _wanted_ him.

And yes – at the back of her mind there was something else, and her heart was telling her it was some scary unknown called _love_.

-oOo-

There was a spring in her step as she hurried down to the cedar tree down by the lake, her arms now encased in the long white opera gloves. It was too balmy, too sultry a night for anything more than the white dress – but she had exposed enough skin already, and knowing how _handsy_ Remy tended to get, going without the gloves would be inviting disaster.

Rogue absently coiled her hair over her shoulder, trying to get the air on her neck, trying to work out the nervousness suddenly welling inside her. In the distance the cedar tree loomed before her, its inky canopy spreading out over the jewel-like waters of the lake, waters that shimmered in the pinpoint lights of the mansion windows. She half-halted.

There he was, standing there under its boughs with his back to her, smoking a cigarette.

Her heart leapt into her mouth.

None of this could be real until he was there before her eyes, and _there_ he was, and now it was _real_.

And there wasn't any turning back now.

Even if she'd _wanted _to.

She continued walking and as she neared him he seemed to sense her. He turned as if drawn to her, and as she finally stepped in under the tree and saw his expression, a new kind of feeling overtook her. Overwhelming panic and giddy triumph. Panic because the way he looked at her, with that slow smile crossing his lips, made her feel more like a woman than ever before. Triumph because he was beautiful and he wanted _her_.

"Rogue," he greeted her.

The single word was more seductive, more heartfelt than a thousand sweet nothings he could've said. Rogue was a hard, unforgiving, bitter word. It was the reason she'd chosen it. But he said it like it was every beautiful thing and for the first time she felt flattered that it was her name, that it was the noun she'd chosen for herself.

"Ah'm here," she answered him in an attempt at levity, at indifference that she didn't actually feel. It should've been easy for her – but somehow he was an expert at teasing out the softness in her, and she blushed with frustration to hear the shyness, the uncertainty in her tone.

If he noticed, he didn't mention it. Instead his gaze took her in in a slow sweep. She was used to his gazes, the way he could piss her off by turning on that lascivious charm she knew so well. He was good at pushing her to the limits of her endurance, to teasing her within an inch of both their lives. But then of course there were those other times – times like these, where his looks were sincere. Where she didn't feel exposed or outraged or just plain angered by them. Where she didn't feel the need or even want to push back. Where he would take her breath away with just the minimum of effort. That was the kind of gaze he was fixing her with now.

"You look beautiful, chere," he murmured; and the way he was looking at her now she should have been expecting the words, but somehow they still surprised her.

They surprised her enough that when she opened her mouth to make a suitably witty or sarcastic retort, nothing came out.

She couldn't make this _light_ and she couldn't make this _meaningless_.

She couldn't deny the way he made her _feel_.

He smiled slightly, tossed away the cigarette and put out a hand to her. She hesitated, her breath hitching. He'd called her beautiful, but it wasn't what she _felt_. _He_ was the beautiful one, in his jeans and his sandals and his sleeveless shirt, in his smooth, warm skin that was as tanned as hers was white.

"I want t' show you somethin'," he said, softly, earnestly.

It was an earnestness, a softness, she felt in herself, and she made up her mind. She trusted him. She put her gloved hand slowly in his.

He led her up towards the boathouse without saying another word. And whilst he was silent, there was something in his pace, his attitude, that made her wonder. It was quick, preoccupied. Like he was impatient for someone or something. _Maybe her._

_Oh Gawd_.

She waited for him to slide a look over his shoulder in her direction. A flirtatious glance, an easy smile. Neither came. He strode up that hill like a man on a mission, and it was only when they reached the boathouse that they slowed, that he actually passed her a glance.

It was short, sharp, incisive. A questing look, an assessing look. Gauging her reaction.

It was a look that made her nervous, that made her think that he _was_ actually hiding something.

_Was he?_

A moment there; a moment gone – he turned away again, and together they walked the creaky steps up to the veranda. It was only when they had almost reached the top that she dropped his hand and brushed past him. She stopped on the top step when she saw what he had done for her.

The veranda was lit in the soft, tawny glow of the boathouse lights, a warm, comforting radiance that glimmered over the surface of the nearby lake. By the door a single table stood, adorned with an unembroidered white cloth; she saw a bottle of wine waiting there, two elegant, spindly glasses. It as simple, it was unaffected – but all the more meaningful for that fact. Gambit was flamboyant, extravagant, never known for understated gestures. This though – this little tableau that was so unassumingly cosy and inviting that it spoke to something she rarely saw in him.

His _sincerity_.

"You don't like it?" he asked when she said nothing.

She turned to him with her heart in her mouth.

There were so many flowery tokens of affection he had given her over their short acquaintance – dates in all sorts of places, from bars to fancy hotels and restaurants to carriage rides through the heart of the city. Gifts from flowers to chocolates to meaningless little tokens that were simply made to make her smile. Then there were gifts that should have been extravagant, but that were too honest and genuine to say anything more than what they meant. Gifts like the butterfly pendant, which she was wearing now, close to her breast. She touched it almost instinctively. What he had done here and now, at the boathouse… it was the same kind of thing. The same kind of thing as the butterfly pendant.

Again she made no reply and he took the last step up onto the veranda, coming as close as he dared into her space when she was feeling so powerfully moved, so powerfully _fragile._

"I want you to like it," he told her softly, and he reached out almost tentatively, taking her gloved hand gently into his own once more – a tender, barely-there touch – adding; "Do you?"

Did she like it? Did he need to ask?

She swallowed and nodded.

And he smiled, this smile that looked something like relief but wasn't, not _exactly_.

Before she could interrogate it he had turned away, his feet making the floorboards squeak beneath them, and after a moment she followed. She watched as he went over to the wine on the table, running her gloved hand over the railing, wracked with a horrible compulsion to tear off her gloves and meet all his sincerity, all his eagerness, with her own. And although she had barely been able to say a thing to him since they'd got here, there were words she _wanted_ to say to him.

_Here Ah am. Gloveless. Ah'm ready t' take the risk now, if you are, sugah. Touch me, if you want. Kiss me, if you dare._

And the feeling was so visceral and frightening, so perfect and thrilling that she hardly dared to look at him for fear that she might go to him. Take him in her arms. Press her lips to his just as she once did to Cody. She stopped at the railing, her breath catching on the thought.

"I wanted t' bring you somewhere nice," she heard him say over the white noise in her ears; there was the sound of wineglasses clinking, being laid, side by side, on the table. "Somewhere dat isn't strange, y'know, but somewhere where no one's gonna get in de way. Where we can be alone."

She turned, saw him turning the corkscrew.

"'Ro said there was gonna be a storm t'night, but I asked her t' chase those clouds away for us, chere, so there ain't no need t' worry…"

She stared.

He popped the cork.

He paused and threw her a look.

"You gonna say somet'ing, p'tit?"

And she finally opened her mouth.

"Ah didn't think—" she began and abruptly stopped.

_Ah didn't think you'd ever bother t' be like this with a woman you can't touch._

The words must have shown on her face because he placed the bottle down, and the next moment he was crossing the floor to her, taking both her hands in his, looking into her eyes and saying, "What? Dat I cared?"

But he _did_ care. Despite all the carelessness of his affections, there were times he showed that this was not a game. What she didn't get was _why_. Why, why bother, when there was no point to any of this? When this could never be more than an attraction, flirtatious banter, frustrated fumblings that she always pushed away?

"We barely know each other," she said.

It wasn't what she'd meant to say, but she knew what she meant when she said it. That somehow, none of these feelings, none of these emotions meant anything when they were so completely unwilling to share anything of themselves with each other.

His brow furrowed. It was like those words were the last thing he'd been expecting.

"So?" he said.

The gaze she replied with was earnest.

"Why can't you tell me about yourself?"

And he raised an eyebrow.

"Why can't you touch me?"

Silence.

She looked away first.

"You know why Ah can't."

"Non," he replied seriously. "I don't. There's a reason why you can't control your powers, chere. You gonna tell me what it is?"

Her hands were still in his, his grip firm yet tender, and beneath the silk of her opera gloves his fingers were so warm, so textured, that she could almost believe that there was nothing between them except skin on skin.

"Because… Ah'm scared," she explained simply, shamefully.

"And why d'you t'ink I can't tell you about myself?"

She darted a look up at him, seeing something in his eyes. A kind of sadness. A shame that almost mirrored her own. It was an admission of fear that stunned her, struck her to the core. Because he never let things like that show. Fear, weakness… vulnerability.

The things that always got her.

To know that he was scared too, scared of showing her these little pieces of himself, of exposing himself fully to her… To know that maybe he _wanted_ to… It opened her heart to him all the more.

He squeezed her hands lightly, dropped them gently.

He turned back to the glasses and poured out the wine.

She swivelled at the railings, her heart beating fast, looking out onto the inky lake with her breath coming heavy, trying to analyse it, failing miserably, giving up entirely.

She'd spent months and months trying to stave this off. Trying to say to herself that this was just a crush, an infatuation, a flirtation with the sort of bad boy you were always supposed to try on for size, just to see if you could _change_ him, just to fail spectacularly and get your heart irrevocably broken for two weeks.

She'd said this to herself a million times.

_He's the sexy bad boy with the hair and the body who wants the awkward, inexperienced tomboy he can never have._

_He's easy to crush on because he's everything a woman wants but can't keep._

_ And it's safe to mess around with him because it'll never tip the scales into something serious, because it _can't.

But it had moved beyond that somehow. This had become something more than lust, or an infatuation, or an experiment in getting close to someone.

Earlier that day, standing in front of her mirror and trying to imagine just exactly what it was he saw when he looked at her… She'd felt it – her, standing precariously on the edge of _falling in love_.

And there was a moment when she stepped over that edge, into the abyss from which there was no return.

It was here, and she did it then, without even knowing it.

She fell in love.

"Rogue."

He was behind her, his voice soft.

She swallowed this sudden and inexplicable feeling, slid him a sidelong smile. He was standing there with a glass of wine in each hand, and she tried not to look at him, she tried not to meet his gaze for fear that if she did that feeling would pour out of her and she'd never be able to stuff it back into the place it had come from. She thought – feared – that something of it spilled out into the smile she sent him; but if he saw it, he didn't say a word.

He handed her her wine and she took it. This wasn't the first time she had felt exposed and vulnerable under his gaze, but, the way she was feeling now, that sense of exposure was more acute than ever. When he stood beside her at the railings, she said nothing, not sure of how to break down this wall, how to broach this subject.

_Ah think Ah'm in-love with you._

_ Ah want you to be in-love with me._

_ But Ah know Ah can't make yah._

Because scores of women had loved him and he could have had every single one of them he wanted, but he couldn't have _her_.

And it hurt like nothing else.

So she did what came so naturally with her and covered over that pain with her usual tartness, her usual bravado.

"So," she said in an almost pitch-perfect expression of sour nonchalance, "is this a date?"

His eyebrow hitched.

"I dunno." He shrugged, smiled that easy smile. "It can be whatever you want it to be, chere."

_Can it?_

She frowned bitterly and looked away.

She knew it couldn't.

"Ah've never been on a date," she admitted, letting the statement hang as if to add, _so Ah don't have a clue what the hell Ah want this to be_. A silence followed, one that lingered a little too long, and she felt his eyes on her, intent, interrogating every inch of her. It made her wonder – yet again – how she measured up to all the other woman he'd ever been with.

"You coulda fooled me, chere," he said at last.

It is so patently a lie that she was almost affronted to hear him say it and think he could get away with it. She let herself look at him then; and the look she threw him must've been a vexed one because it made him look away – but not before it had coaxed an unexpected smile from him, a smile that told her that he enjoyed the way she could suss out his attempts at empty flattery without even having to try.

She allowed herself to think that maybe there was _something_ she had on all those other women. Like the fact that she could see through his meaningless sweet talk, that she could provide him with a challenge.

They fell into silence again, and after a few moments of it, she began to feel its comforting embrace begin to cradle her. For once he was quiet, not pulling, not pushing, not goading her into passionate interactions they might later regret. He had been honest with her earlier, admitting his fear to her. She wanted to be honest with him return. She wanted to let him know she appreciated his sincerity.

"The only dates Ah ever had were down by the river," she told him quietly, looking down into the water. "With Cody. But Ah guess they weren't ever really dates. We used to splash around in the river, try and catch bugs and fish… And sometimes we'd lie in the grass and talk."

She looked over at him, finding his gaze right there on hers; and somehow she wasn't scared to meet it anymore. He was a man who knew what it was to want, and to get. And she wanted him to know, more than ever, what it was like to want, and _not_ to get.

"We coulda mucked around, Ah guess," she murmured. "All the other kids were tryin' it out. But we never did. Ah guess Ah thought about it. Ah reckon Ah even wanted it. But yah know, with Cody… it was never about the fumblin' around. He really liked me. Ah think that kinda scared him too. It sure as hell scared me."

And somehow that admission emboldened her. If she had been scared then, what had she to be scared of now? There was nothing more to lose now than she actually had then.

So she swivelled round, propped her elbows against the railings, leant back and _looked_ at him. Met his gaze as if to _tell_ him that she wasn't scared anymore. He looked away first, his glance sweeping involuntarily over her body as though he couldn't help himself, before darting right back to her eyes again.

"And does dis scare you too, chere?" he asked her quietly.

And somehow she could hold that gaze as she replied softly, "It scares the shit outta me. It scares me more to know you ain't scared. But Ah still want ta kiss yah."

He blinked.

It was a confession he hadn't been close to expecting, because every time he'd tried to coax it from her in the past she'd basically told him to _fuck off_. There was a heartbeat where his demeanour changed entirely. Where everything subtly changed. And she knew, instinctively, that she had done the exact thing he'd least expected her to do. She'd cut to the chase.

"There are ways…" he murmured, almost to himself, and she answered, without a blink of hesitation,

"Ah know."

His eyes narrowed. Almost as if he expected this to be some sort of test. But she said nothing and so he continued in a low, passionate tone;

"And if there are ways t' kiss you, there are ways to go even further…"

Okay. There it was. She'd thought of it. He had too.

"Ah know that too," she whispered, hardly able to breath.

He blinked again.

And that was when he did it. Reached out and placed a hand on her waist. The cotton of her dress was so thin it was almost like she could feel his bare hand on her skin. It awakened in her a desire so strong she almost wanted to weep with it. She couldn't remember a sensation so visceral. From the way he swallowed, the way he looked down at his hand right there on her, she could tell that he was feeling the same way.

And yet…

"I could just be playin' you," he muttered – more dangerous honesty.

"Ah know."

"I could take everythin' from you, chere," he continued, "and just walk away. It's what I do. It's what I've always done."

And she didn't bat an eyelid.

"Ah know."

This was clearly going to places he hadn't fathomed. Opened up avenues that he'd never dreamt she would contemplate, let alone open herself. He was confused, questioning.

"And yet you're still here…"

It was like she'd found him out, spoiled the game. Like she should have slapped him in the face by now and stalked off. Like he should be running as far and as fast as his legs could take him. Like… he had no clue why he wasn't. His puzzlement, his bewilderment was so breathtakingly endearing to her that she couldn't help it. She reached out, placed her palm against his chest. Felt his heartbeat there. So strong, so steady, so sure. Why was she here? The answer was simple.

"'Cos Ah'm willin' to bet…" she murmured softly, "that beneath all the show and the swagger… all the hair and the angst… There's a good sorta person inside you, Remy LeBeau. A kind man. A lovin' man." And her gloved fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt, and she felt his heart quicken when she said, gently, tenderly, with all the love newly inspired inside her, "A man worth trustin'. Like Ah trust you."

And she saw it.

A subtle shift in his expression, a flickering in those beautiful, dark eyes of his. His face went still, sober. Sad almost. After a moment or so standing under his gaze, so close to his body, in that instant of almost heartbreakingly perfect intimacy… He turned away.

He actually turned and walked away.

She watched, numb, dumbfounded, as he abruptly went back to the table and laid down his glass heavily. He didn't move, didn't say a thing. The sting of this rejection left her worse than hurt. She didn't understand.

"Did Ah say somethin' wrong?" she asked, covering over her dismay with that same old accusatory bravado. And he stood there with his back to her, a soft laugh coming from his lips, one that was, again, shot with a kind of sadness.

"No, chere," he answered quietly. "You didn't say not'ing wrong. Not'ing at all."

She set aside the wineglass, placing it on the floorboards at her feet, and took a step towards him. She didn't believe him for a second.

"Ah musta done," she reasoned coldly. "A second ago you were sayin' there were ways we could touch, we could kiss. Ah even said Ah trusted yah. And now this?"

He glanced back at her over his shoulder, his expression one of studied neutrality.

"Dere ain't many people who can trust me, chere," he muttered. "There's a reason for dat."

"So? Ah _do_ trust yah. And Ah know what sort of a man you are, and Ah don't care about all that. Ah… Ah _want_ tah kiss yah. So let's try it. Let's try t' touch."

She thought she was being truthful with him. Giving him the opportunity to have everything he wanted. Giving him the opening he'd been angling for for all this time. She couldn't understand why he didn't take it. Why he didn't _want_ it anymore. Why he didn't want _her_ anymore.

But he turned then and walked back to her. He took her hands right back into his and said in a low, urgent tone:

"Rogue. D'you understand what you're sayin'? What it is you want me t'do?"

She stared at him. Confused.

"Of course Ah do… Ah want what _you _want…"

"Heh." His laugh was small, helpless. "But is it what I want? Dis t'ing you felt down by the river wit' Cody? Dat innocence, dat exploration, dat taste of somet'ing dat's…" and the final word blasted from his mouth like he hadn't said it and meant it in a long time, "beautiful?"

"Isn't it?" she whispered as she looked up at him; because wasn't that exactly what they both wanted? And he shook his head slightly, real consternation on his face, real _distress_, she thought, and he said, almost wildly, almost helplessly:

"What I want, Rogue… Fuck, how can I say dis wit'out it soundin' like de worst t'ing in de world to you?" He paused, as if to take a moment to back away from whatever it was he might say next, but she caught his gaze again like she demanded it and he continued instead, "I want to have _sex_ wit' you, Rogue. I don't want any of dat other stuff. At least, I don't t'ink I do." He halted again, seemingly baffled by it, shook himself, added; "The idea of what we can have, of what can be possible between us… I've thought about it, y'know. Sometimes for days on end. What it'd be like to… to be inside you, to figure out all the ways we could fit t'gether, to not have dis _t'ing_ hangin' b'tween us anymore, to just… to _fuck_ each other, chere. To just _fuck _each other."

He'd said it all in a heated rush and when he was finished he almost glared at her, his eyes bleeding in the dusky light of the boathouse, as though demanding her to respond to his truth. And she stood, still as a stone, searching his face, feeling his hands grasp hers almost unconsciously, like he'd forgotten he was even holding them. It was the tender firmness of that grasp that spoke to her more than his words actually did.

"Ah want that too," she whispered. She wasn't lying.

An exhalation blasted from his mouth.

He was breathing audibly, visibly, and it was a long moment before he replied.

"_Do you_?" he insisted on strangled voice. And again she searched his face, wondering why he was stalking round this issue like a predator refusing to believe that its prey was willing, like it expected this to be some kind of trick.

"Yes," she half-whispered. "Ah do. Ah want… Ah want to know what it's like to… to be with you. To… to sleep with you." And she felt the colour rise to her cheeks even as she stumbled awkwardly around the words. "Ah want to know what your body feels like against mine… _inside_ mine."

He swallowed. Hard.

"And do you want to know what it feels like when it's over?" he asked her in that same hoarse tone. "When I walk away?"

She stared. Dumbfounded again. Her heart, her stomach, flip-flopping.

"Ah trust you enough to know you won't," she rejoined in a barely-there voice; but she _wasn't_ sure now. Not when he was pushing like this. Pushing so hard and so fast in the opposite direction, confusing the hell out of her.

He bit his lip. Like he was trying to hold back on a million more words, a million more thoughts and feelings that should remain unspoken. Instead he dropped one of her hands, reached out, touched her hair in a caress that was gentleness itself, so careful not to brush against her bare skin.

"Rogue," he said her name again earnestly, questingly. And she thought she knew what he wanted to say. That she was too good, too pure, too perfect for the likes of him.

It made her angry.

"Ah ain't as experienced as the gals you usually go t' bed with," she told him bitterly, "but Ah ain't stupid neither, Remy, and Ah ain't an idiot. Dontcha _dare_ tell me you ain't good enough for me. Ah don't care about any of that. Ah don't care where you came from, or what you've done, or who you've slept with. Ah want _you_ because you're _you_. And if there's a way for us to touch and kiss and fuck, Ah _want_ it. Can we stop fuckin' around with each other and just _try_?"

He blinked. His hand paused in her hair like he was trying desperately not to let it move to stroke her bare cheek.

"Rogue," he murmured, gazing at her lips like he wanted nothing better than to eat them up, "lemme tell you what you deserve. You deserve a man who will touch you in places where skin don't matter. Who will kiss every inch of you because every inch of you is de t'ing he worships most. Who will spend an entire day making love to you, slowly and humbly, completely unselfishly, who'll think of and for nothin' but _you_." He breathed audibly, finished quietly, "I can't give you dat."

And she growled. Actually growled to hear his infuriating bullshit, his infuriating doubletalk.

She took his cheeks between his gloved palms and put her face within an inch of his. She stunned him into silence.

"You are _exactly_ the man who can give me that!" she seethed at him. "Stop fuckin' around with mah head! You don't _know_ what Ah deserve, and you don't know what Ah _want_. And you _definitely_ don't have a_ clue_ what Ah can _handle_. Haven't you listened to a word I've said? Ah want to _fuck_ you. If there's a way for us to do it, let's do it. Let's do it _now_."

She stopped. Didn't move. Until that moment, she didn't think she had ever breathed so hard. In fact, they were panting, _panting_, like they _were _about to fuck. And something took her. Something horrible and exciting and deeply thrilling and she ripped her right glove off with her teeth, pressed the flimsy silk against his mouth, and heaven be damned – she kissed him.

She kissed him with all the passion she could when there was this infernal barrier between them. And when first one hand slipped round her waist, and another slid round the back of her neck, she pressed herself against him, wanting frantically, irresponsibly, to have nothing but nakedness to separate one from the other.

It was passionate, it was desperate, it was angry.

It was all the things she felt.

And when she couldn't take the horrible closeness any longer she shoved him away from her, their kiss brutally ended.

They stood, only a couple of feet apart, hardly able to catch their breaths, each secretly wanting nothing more than to bridge the sudden gap between them and continue right again where they had left off.

She gulped in the night air, hoping against hope that he would come back to her, her emotions a furious tumult of anger and hunger and deep, unappeased love for this man who had driven her to heaven and hell and back. But he didn't come to her. He stood there, chest heaving, his hands subconsciously bunching and loosening at his sides. Like if he didn't occupy them somehow, he might do something incredibly stupid.

Like _rip her clothes off._

The thought was enough to drive her to insanity.

"And _that_," she ground out viciously, waving her ungloved finger at him, "is a reminder of what Ah _want_, Remy LeBeau. Of the thing you so_ insultingly _think Ah ain't ready to have yet."

And he still stood there. Hands at his sides, working silently.

"I don't want to break your heart, Rogue," he breathed, and she shot him a _look_.

"Ah ain't a child, Remy," she snapped; and:

"_Non_," he agreed helplessly. "You are all kinds of amazin'."

The words were said with such fiery conviction and admiration that she couldn't be angry at him, not any more. She stood a long moment, trying to calm herself down, trying to ease the tension, the fury, the _disappointment_ from her body.

"D'ya think there'll ever be a time," she finally asked him pointedly, "when you could learn _not_ to break mah heart?"

And he gave her that once over, that sweeping gaze she knew so well, that slide of a smile.

"I'll make it my life's goal, chere."

"Ha!" She laughed sarcastically, threw up her hands in mock resignation. "Then don't take too long, sugah." She'd had enough. She turned and walked to the stairs, throwing over her shoulder acidly as she did so: "Thanks for the 'date', Cajun. Ah hope it was worth your while."

And she'd already got to the bottom of the steps when she heard him say: "Wit' you, chere – always."

_Always_.

Always a game, always an angle, always a _something_.

She walked back past the lake, past the tree, up to the mansion.

His kiss was still a tingling brand on her lips.

And every step she took away from him seemed to lead right back to this feeling deep inside of her.

_Ah'm in-love with you._

_ Ah want you to be in-love with me._

_ But Ah know Ah can't make yah._

-oOo-

He watched her go, a receding silhouette in a figure-hugging white dress, walking off into the distance. A thousand hungers consumed him as he let her leave, hungers – desires – that would have to remain unsatisfied. Perhaps for now. Perhaps forever.

He took the nullifier from the back pocket of his jeans, a thin sliver of silver bracelet he'd asked Forge to make especially for her. A gift to take away her vampiric power. An elegant token with a sinister and selfish edge.

"Fuckin' piece of shit," he muttered to himself, and he threw it back onto the table, next to the wine.

He walked into the boathouse, into the open lounge, past the kitchen and the bathroom, through to the bedroom at the back. He stood in the entrance and looked at his handiwork. The low lights, the flickering candles, the drawn curtains, the soft, white cotton bedsheets spread neatly, evenly across the bed. The spotless simplicity of it all barely concealing the invitation implicit in it. An invitation to a willing seduction.

He stood there a moment, trying not to think about the things he'd be doing to her right now, on this bed, if things had been different.

He ran his tongue over his lips, his hand through his hair.

It'd seemed right not so long ago, but now the whole tableau seemed horribly trite and Machiavellian and he hated it.

Silently, almost mechanically, he moved through the room, blowing out the candles, throwing them in the wastebasket. He went back to the door and looked back. Making sure all evidence of his devious little plan was gone. He switched off the lights and closed the door gently behind him.

Lights were switched off, one by one. The boathouse fell into its silent repose once more. Quietly Remy locked up, slipped the key into his pocket. When he stepped out onto the veranda, he stood at the railings, in the darkness, right where she had been not ten minutes before. He lit a cigarette. He smoked on it thoughtfully and stared at the moon. The shape and the heat of her lips seemed to have been imprinted onto his own and it wouldn't go.

He thought of her words. Her declaration of trust like a smack upside the head after everything he'd had planned for her here. She might as well have gone and told him. She might as well have said, _Ah love you_.

Because he knew she did.

He knew it.

It was why he'd planned this. Knowing, as he did, that it would allow him to talk her into taking the nullifier from him and putting it on and just damn well fucking him. It would've been as simple as that. Wham, bam, _done_. He'd have her out of his system once and for all. He'd know what it was like to have the untouchable Rogue. To conquer the unconquerable. He'd have finally found a way to end this nightmare of being so fucking _hung up_ on someone. It had made sense at the time. _Just fuck her, LeBeau. Fuck her and then walk away._

Remy inhaled deeply. Exhaled. Wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Unable to get the imprint of her kiss off of him.

He still wasn't sure why, but something had changed and after that he hadn't been able to do it. He tried to analyse it, to figure it out. It wasn't the words she had said exactly. It wasn't her admission of trust. It wasn't even the way she'd looked at him, or the warmth of her palm print over his heart. It was a little bit of all those things, and it wasn't anything to do with any of them at all. It had been _her_. Just her.

Teasing out this little thing inside him. Tugging on a heart string he'd never known he had. And the moment he'd felt it move, he hadn't been able to do it. He hadn't been able to deceive her into sleeping with him. Not even if she'd wanted it.

This feeling, it had been overwhelming, intense, a surge of emotion that had threatened to drag him under, so horribly all-consuming that he'd had to turn away from her. He hadn't been able to bear letting her see it on his face.

And it was still there. It hadn't gone.

_It ain't love, LeBeau. It ain't._

Because he wasn't capable of love. Everything that had happened with Belle had destroyed that part of him and he couldn't get it back.

But couldn't do it to her. When he'd felt that feeling he hadn't been able to go ahead with it, to trick her into sex. She was right. She wasn't stupid. Even if they'd both wanted it, she would've figured out that it had been his plan to seduce her all along, and she would've killed him for it. She would've _hated_ him for it.

And he didn't want that. He really, honestly _didn't._

He _didn't_ want to break her heart.

If it was going to happen between them, it had to come from her. She had to be ready for it again. She had to want it. _She _was the one who had everything to lose. Not him.

He threw his cigarette to the floor, ground it out with his heel.

He thought of her kiss.

_Her kiss_.

_God_.

His heart burned.

He turned and walked down the steps, off the veranda, onto the lawn. He followed her footsteps up past the lake, the tree, towards the mansion. He stood in her footsteps, mirrored her thoughts.

_I want t' be wit' you._

_ I want t' be wit' you in every which way, and I want you to give in, t' let me have you in every way it's possible for a man and a woman t' be together. Even if it hurts. Even if it kills._

_ But I know I can't _make_ you._

_ 'Cos, Lord knows, Rogue, I can't even make me take it from you myself_.

-END-


End file.
